Category: Events

Egyptians are being encouraged to eat better and add more natural foods to our diets with a cooking contest today. The contest asks budding chefs to create a recipe with at least 20 added Strength, Dexterity and Endurance using Common Rosemary and Catfish in the ingredient list.

Times are on your in-game Calendar, and the prizes are great, including a fishing pole and pearls!

In advance of the fishing contest, the chef behind the popular River Plains Cafe, Styx, will be holding a Cooking Clinic for those looking to improve their cooking or to create their own recipes. The Clinic will cover:

The good news is: there is a multi-scheduled herb event with great prizes this weekend! Check your in-game calendar to find all three hours this event will be held in your local time zone.

The bad news is: the event announcement may (or may not!) be a clue that sickness will once again hit Egypt, potentially spreading from already-stricken sailors to the rest of the population:

Sickness is amongst the sailors of the Bella Dama! Captain Belzoni has reluctantly turned to Melanie because of her expertise in botanical medications. One of the symptoms is severe coughing which can be helped with tincture applications on the chest of Mountain Mint and another herb.

In a previous Tale, a coughing disease spread among citizens while Egypt was theoretically charged with finding a cure. In practice, most of Egypt just hacked phlegm all over each other for weeks on end while a handful of skilled researchers worked like dogs to find a cure. So maybe hold on to your Mountain Mint…

Regardless of what may follow, the events team has once again come through with a lineup of “do want!” prizes, as follows:

There will be an acro event this Saturday night/Sunday morning to help those who still need to fill in their acro moves to pass principles or to progress through the Test of the Acrobat. If you haven’t started this test and are Level 3 or higher, get down to your nearest U Body and sign up so you don’t miss this chance to acro with a group of people.

Please check your in-game calendar for your local event start time if you are unsure about when to turn up for Acro! If your in-game clock is correct, the time on the Calendar even will be local to you. To get the Calendar to pop up: Self > Utility > See the Calendar.

You’ll find the River Plains Acro Stadium at 1710, 2692 just a few minutes south of the CS (even at a slow jog!) Follow the road running south of the CS and the acro stadium is the black SSS-shaped thing you can see on your map when you hit F3.

The Acro Field has designated spots the necessary distance apart for acro “privacy.” People will stand at a station and those needing acro will move from station to station in a line.

To celebrate the end of Welcome Back Weekend and a fantastic three days of herb, hookah and phoenix events, the River Plains Cafe Party House is throwing a Grand Opening Hookah, Wine and Beer Party on Sunday and all of Egypt is invited.

Hosted at the new tasting table venue at RP 1615, 2873 just behind the Beetle Garden at the River Plains CS, this event is on your calendar as Hookah Party: Wine, Beer, Food in your local time: 8 PM London, 3 PM New York, noon LA – and for hardcore Antipodians, that is 5 am Sydney time.

Held for the same 2 hours as the official ‘Tell Some Ghost Stories Around the Old Hookah’ event also on the calendar, smoking hookah in a group will help everyone around the hookah to score for the Most Social prizes given during the in-game event. So drop in and enjoy the party:

Peter will be our Hookah Master and will be packing bowls of one, two and three-herb combos into two hookahs, including rares!

Hookah food from Styx will be in the kitchens on site for CON+.

Dozens of bottles of wine from vintners Silden, Madwife, Kaa and Smurf will be on hand, running from Vintage 11 – Vintage 26.

Brand-new barrels of beer from brewer Branco will be making their debut!

DOOR PRIZES! Peter has very generously donated a vast number of cucumbers, Lilies of the Sea and Orchids as random prizes for people attending!

Everyone is welcome to come down and pick up points for fumeology, fill up you wine notebooks, and increase your beer tasting skills. If none of this stuff matters to you, you’re still welcome to come enjoy a fun social event and meet up with friends both old and new 🙂

To coincide with the weekend herbing events that no doubt will result in thousands of herb chests bulging to maximum capacity, Egypt is also hosting three rounds of hookah events. Scheduled for different time zones, shown in your local time on your Calendar, each one is uniquely named but all are the same format, achievements and prizes:

Prizes will be awarded for the most improved Fumeology skill. Goodies also to those who excel in sharing a hookah with friends.

While the rest of the world is out catching Pokemons, Egyptians will be spending this weekend catching herbs for the Foraging Studies event. Scheduled in three 2-hour blocks across all time zones, this event is tied to the Bella Dama storyline; Melanie has now settled in Egypt and is looking for herb data that can be gathered from foraging:

Melanie is very interested in the herbs of Egypt and would like to have data for her scientific studies… As you forage, data will be compiled by the scientists of the great University of Body and given to her. She has some wonderful rewards for those that help in this trio of foraging!

Pharaoh has let it be known through the in-game Calendar that Saturday will see the Pharaoh’s Fish Feast fishing contest, an event lasting three hours:

All Egyptians are invited to fish for Pharoah’s favoured fish…and will be well rewarded for their efforts.

The type of fish Pharaoh favours will be announced at the start of the event. Prizes are:

Top place: portable cornerstone

Top seven: 1 Orchid Bulb Avalon

Top 21: 5 Cuttable Sunstone

Participation Prize: 50 Chicken Feed

Lottery – Airship

Pharaoh may have a favoured fish, but it should be noted that fishing events are not favoured by all Egyptians. Our antipodian cousins may be unimpressed at the invitation to begin a 3 hour event at 2 am local time in Sydney, Australia, for example. Mac users and other macroless citizens have complained that previous fishing events were won by Automato-ing Egyptians. And of course, a previously won fishing pole gives an advantage to any player using it.

Still, from food to fertilizer, there’s no such thing as too much fish, so ladies and gentlemen: prepare to start reeling!

The storyline for the Bella Dama continues to unfold with various announcements in System and a Calendar notice titled Washed Up and Put Out to Dry:

Captain Allesandri is in need of help again!

If you find proof of a sailor, First Mate Vincenzo wants to see it and reward you. You will find him at the Bella Dama.

OOC: Proof = crate item

What unfolds is essentially a scavenger hunt, with barrels washed ashore up and down the Nile. Clicking a barrel opens a note with a clue to the next location, ostensibly left by the crew as they struggled to orient themselves and find shelter and water. Along the clue trail players must follow to track the sailors, each barrel give prizes, on which there appear to be no limit — there is one from every barrel for every player who finds a clue. Prizes are low-level participation prizes ranging from the meh to the mediocre and examples include:

1 deben Perch meat

1 cuttable jade

1 cuttable lapis

1 glass jar

Following the clues eventually leads to scenes built using mannequins to represent the found sailors, as well as one or more crates:

Those who find crates with familiar items still in them (shoes, jerky, salted beef tongue) can take it with them to the Bella Dama as proof of a found sailor and turn it in for an unknown prize. The ship is currently docked in OE to the west of the CS, and is manned by the captain and some surviving crew.

However, even this early in the weekend-long event, crates that still have items in them are in very short supply. Disgruntled players, dismayed by what is otherwise a fun event, have no indication on when or if crates will be refilled or if there are more ways to claim prizes from the Bella Dama that are yet to unfold.

Details from the post seem to suggest that Egyptians may wish to once again search the coast line for the body of the missing woman, Melanie LaFitte, who is presumed to have been swept overboard:

“The girl, Miss Melanie, some of the crew was asking if we should do a body search along the shores?” the first mate asked.

“Our own crew first!” [the Captain] said decidedly. “We can ask these Egyptians to help again. They know their own country and can search hill and dale for signs of them.”

Just as the door creaked open he heard Allesandri add, “Let Petroni start searching the shores. He can’t pester the wits out of me if he isn’t on the ship. Too bad the sea did not swallow him.”

Based on the story to date, it seems possible that the crew member Petroni may make an in-game appearance as well.
Please report any sightings of crew members or passengers, dead or alive, to the Daily Scarab Tipline on 1-800-CHAT-EIMEAR.

Amunsul was the only player to turn in items that scored 6 points. The unluckiest people were nourbese, Powertje, Baltharina, Sandman, Maxion, Robby and Madwife, who each scored two payments for their 7 items.

However, special mention goes out to Peabody, who despite the efforts of a few other players to haggle, stands alone in successfully gaming the Gamemasters.

In an attempt to figure out the points system on which prizes would presumably be based, many Egyptians generously shared their data with the data analysts in the accounts department in the dusty basement of the Daily Scarab.

Several theories were in the running (crate types; various alphabetical weightings; randomised optimal scoring per player; groupings of metals, clothing, food, etc;) but it was not until Peabody cleverly turned in just one item (Oriental Spices) and received 1 Payment G point that the data crunchers were able to verify that the prizes were grouped, and extract from the rest of the data evidence that the groupings were random but the same for all players. Exact groupings were not clear until the event ended and the groups were revealed by the ship’s chef.

The captain, who had consistently professed surprise that the trading abilities of Egypt’s women were on par with those of her men and had made a series of appalling remarks about our fairest citizens, was unavailable to comment on the fact that his prize system was gamed by a trade from a woman.